The words we use to describe innovation absolutely suck

I have a friend who worked for years at Amazon. She’s a great content writer and I asked her to review some language for this website recently.

Her feedback underscored one of the biggest challenges I’ve found when describing what I do…the words we collectively use to describe innovation— suuuck.

Who among us is not absolutely, hand-wringingly exhausted by business book jargon?

tipping point
disruption
transformation
agile
strategy
value

and, yes, “innovation.”

Instant labotomy. Yawn.

Ok, let me try to wake you up with my own super meaningful definition of innovation. Ready?

Innovation: changing things (for the better) such that the world is not the same on the other side.

Did you make it through that with your frontal lobe engaged? Likely not.

This language (no matter how sincere and relevant) puts us to sleep for a reason.

These are concepts, not reality. Good concepts. Useful, in fact.

But not reality.

The real work comes in when an organization creates deeply specific and meaningful versions for themselves.

Real strategy [to meet this year’s goals.]
Real innovation [to figure out answers to industry-wide problems.]
Real transformation [from how we used to do things to how we need to do things.]

Easy to say in concept. Hard to do in reality.

Helping companies form their own deeply meaningful versions of these enduring concepts and then help them operationalize a productive path forward is my job as coach.

Because I work with a wide range of industries and business types, I must use the conceptual (and overused) global language to describe what I do.

But rest assured, once we begin working together, it all snaps to your exact line.